A jar of story ideas, placed by a teacher on her desk and filled with scraps of paper submitted by students, escapes and turns rowdy when the embodiments of imagination forget that their actions need to stay contained as stories. By the award-winning author of Warning: Do Not Open This Book!

Loving being plugged into her computer, little Blip is separated by a blackout that inadvertently causes her to stumble outside, where she encounters a world filled with color, excitement and adventures with new friends. By the creator of the best-selling Mr. Panda series.

Confused by an unusual gift that is quite different from his stuffed animals who cannot move or talk, 5-year-old Ben presses his new toy's nose to make it come alive, talk and play games, activities that reveal to Ben how friendship can develop in unexpected ways.

What it's about: Two desert-dwelling turtles discover -- and immediately covet -- a single cowboy hat.

Why kids might like it: From the comically oversized hat to the turtles' shifty eyes, the spare illustrations speak volumes, ramping up the tension over hat ownership only to resolve it with a surprisingly gentle twist.

For fans of: the hat-based moral dilemmas in Jon Klassen's earlier books, I Want My Hat Back and This is Not My Hat.

Starring: Lonely Billy Hightower, who lives "atop the world's tallest building" with a lively breeze as his only companion -- a breeze that interferes every time Billy tries to get the attention of the red-hatted girl in the neighboring skyscraper.

Look for: the vivid pops of red that stand out against the book's black-white-and-blue illustrations, creating striking visuals for this story about overcoming obstacles to find friendship.

What it's about: After Elephant wakes up feeling grumpy, he discovers that donning a stack of colorful hats banishes his bad mood.

Why kids might like it: Children will want to cheer along as Elephant distributes funky headgear to his grouchy friends, transforming each grumbled "go away!" into a gleeful refrain of "hooray for hat!"

Try this next: Hooray for Today! and Hooray for Books!, also by Brian Won.